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How the GOP health bill would impact Americans on Medicaid

May 09 2017 by Irving Hamilton

It's "Trumpcare" now, and Republicans have to answer for it.

"For seven years the Republicans have been promising, 'If only you elect us, we'll repeal ObamaCare, ' " Cruz told Kudlow.v "I think the consequences of failure would be catastrophic". Chief among them: a guarantee of paying the same amount for coverage regardless of health history.

Since these provisions only involve the individual insurance market, a small slice of the overall insurance picture (about 18 million are on the individual market), and merely make possible state waivers, they are inherently limited. 20 Republicans joined Democrats to vote no on the bill in the House.

"We will have truly great health care!". So it's worth going back to the basic numbers.

"Senator [Elizabeth] Warren [(D-Mass.)] and I are going to do everything in our power to stop this bill in the United States Senate".

The potential fallout crystallized nearly immediately.

President Donald Trump said in his speech announcing his 2016 campaign that he would not cut Medicaid and bragged on Twitter that he was the first candidate to do so. Among the vulnerable Republicans is two-term New Jersey Representative Tom MacArthur, who helped revive the bill by authoring a key amendment on pre-existing conditions. "People will die", Massachusetts Democratic Sen. If that catches on, 2018 might be a good year for Democrats after all. Some insurance plans also included pregnancy as a preexisting condition, which-contra the current pop narrative-did not mean that any woman who was or had been pregnant would be denied insurance coverage altogether, simply that those applying for new health insurance while now pregnant might not be eligible for immediate maternity/prenatal care. Of those nine, one Republican - Florida's Ileana Ros-Lehtinen - already has announced her retirement, and Democrats see her seat as a prime pickup opportunity.

The House bill was written by Republicans representing districts often drawn to incorporate strong majorities of GOP voters.

Kustoff, who voted for the House version Thursday, focused most of his remarks on a coming move to repeal Dodd-Frank financial industry reforms.

Almost every major medical group, including the American Medical Association and the American Hospital Association, and the AARP advocacy group for older Americans, strongly opposed the Bill.

Instead, the ACA requires everyone in the statewide coverage pool to pay the same rates, spreading the higher cost of sicker enrollees among all plan members. That's another reason for GOP senators from hard-hit Midwestern and Northeastern states to oppose such cuts. The overwhelming majority of them cast their votes as Ryan said they should, and then they ran the gantlet-past crowds of citizens chanting "Shame! It is remarkable, and we will be reminding people of it". Outgoing Gov. John Kasich, a Republican, condemned the Republican measure as "woefully short". He said repealingObamacare is "critically important for Kentucky" citing few insurance carriers and more than 30% on Medicaid.

Some Republicans maintain that the GOP had no choice. In National Review, Rich Lowry called out the GOP's procedural hypocrisy, writing, "The rush to put it on the floor as soon as they got the votes is violating everything Republicans said about the importance of a careful, deliberative process during the Obamacare debate".